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Inglewood
police officer Jeremy Morse slams Donovan Jackson’s head
against police car in videotape
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LOS
ANGELES, July 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Civic leaders in
Los Angeles demanded Tuesday, July 9, that a white policeman accused of
beating a black teenager face criminal charges, as the clash re-ignited
racial tensions in this multi-ethnic city.
The
call came as 75 angry protesters marched on Inglewood City Hall, the Los
Angeles area city where the officer slammed a handcuffed Donovan
Jackson, 16, down on the hood of a police car Saturday, July 6, before
slugging him, Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported.
Inglewood
Mayor Roosevelt Dorn called on prosecutors to examine charges of
assault, battery, assault with a deadly weapon - the weapon being the
car - as well as possible charges of child abuse against the officer.
“...
In my mind, I can’t think of anything that this teenager could have
done that would justify the conduct that I observed on the video,” he
told the protesters who marched to city hall and barged into his office.
“This
young man’s civil rights were without a question violated,” he said,
adding that the officer, identified as Jeremy Morse, should also be
immediately sacked from the Inglewood Police Department.
The
group of protesters who marched to Inglewood City Hall and stormed into
Dorn’s office demanding a meeting with him, shared the mayor’s
outrage.
“My
taxpayer money is paying for officers to beat 16-year-old black males,
handcuffed, and then they get administrative leave,” said Shirley
McNad, demanding that Morse be fired now rather than after a long
investigation
Los
Angeles police launched Monday, July 8, a probe into the videotaped
beating of a black teenager by white policemen in a scene reminiscent of
the attack on Rodney King that led to riots here 10 years ago.
The
incident, which took place Saturday at a gas station in the
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| Police
officers pick up a handcuffed Donovan off the ground before
slamming him onto police car
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Inglewood
area, was captured on video by an amateur cameraman who saw the arrest
of the young car passenger from a nearby hotel.
The
dramatic film, which has grabbed national media attention, shows a
police officer picking up the handcuffed 16-year-old Jackson, and
slamming his face down on the hood of a squad car. The videotape shows a
prone Jackson hoisted to his feet by Inglewood Officer Jeremy Morse and
slammed onto the trunk of a police car.
The
officer then punched the youth in the head while he was pinned to the
car and then appeared to choke him. Two officers appear to intervene,
with at least one trying to pull away the first officer’s arm.
Police
then booked Jackson, who had been a passenger in a vehicle pulled over
on suspicion that its driver was driving on a suspended driver’s
license, for allegedly assaulting a police offer.
He
was later released following medical treatment, but police said Monday
that an investigation had been launched into the incident that recalled
the 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King.
That
beating, which took place after a high speed chase and was captured on
video, led to the worst race riots in U.S. history after the policemen
accused of assaulting him were acquitted by a mostly white jury in April
1992.
“The
incident is being taken very seriously,” said Inglewood police
Lieutenant Eve Irvine, describing the tape as “extremely
disturbing.”
The
officer accused of slamming the youngster down on the car has been
relieved of duties and placed on administrative leave pending the
outcome of the investigation.
Three
other officers who were present were also under investigation to decide
whether they used excessive force.
Irvine
claimed that one of the policemen and the boy - whose family says he
suffers from a “developmental disability,” were involved in an
altercation that was not captured on the videotape in which the officer
suffered lacerations.
But
the attorney for the boy’s family, Joe Hopkins, slammed the
officers’ behavior, saying the video would become key evidence in a
lawsuit the family plans to file against the city of Inglewood.
According
to Hopkins, the father and son pulled into the station to get gas and
Jackson went to get potato chips. The deputies then confronted the youth
and ordered him against the car. “From there it went crazy,” he
said.
A
deputy grabbed the youth by the neck before city officers began to beat
him, the attorney said.
He said the boy suffered injuries to his neck and eye, adding that the
youth appeared to have been beaten before the video recording began as
he was already “in a daze” when he was banged down on the police
car. “In that video the kid is essentially unconscious. He is out
of it,” Hopkins said.
“My
reaction is that nothing has changed since Rodney King,” he told
reporters. “They’ve done a grave injustice to this young man, and
they need to ‘fess up and do what’s right by him.”
The
case immediately sparked passionate reaction in this ethnically diverse
city that was torn apart by the 1992 riots.
Community
activists demanded that the four officers involved in the latest
incident be fired and prosecuted, and insisted that the investigation
into it be carried out by an independent body and not by the police.
“It’s
like the fox watching the henhouse,” said activist Najee Ali, director
of Project Islamic Hope. “You don’t let police investigate police.
That’s why you have outside investigators. That’s how you can stop
police corruption and police abuse.”
“This
is another Rodney King beating,” said Ali, “This young man was
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officers slamming Donovan onto police car
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handcuffed and beaten. These officers need to be criminally prosecuted
and fired, not just suspended for what they did.”
A
spokeswoman for the district attorney, Sandi Gibbons, said it was
investigating whether police or sheriff’s deputies committed any
crimes.
Los
Angeles County sheriff’s Sergeant Richard Myers said two deputies
stopped a vehicle driven by 41-year-old man and cited him for driving
with a suspended license.
The
boy - who was a passenger in the car then got into a confrontation with
four Inglewood police officers who had been standing as back-up, and
became “combative,” Myers claimed.
“Force
was needed to subdue him and take him into custody,” he said.
But
Mitch Crooks, the amateur photographer who filmed the incident said he
was shocked by the police action. “This is disgusting, you know?
I mean, we all love our police and our firemen, but this has got to
stop. I saw the guy getting beat and I was shocked that I was seeing
what I was seeing,” he told KCAL 9 local television.
“I
saw them pick up the guy like he was a crash test dummy or something,”
Crooks told CNN. “The officer carried him over to the car and then
slammed him, it looked like with all of his force, everything he had,
and just slammed him down on the car.
“Then,
the guy started looking up, the kid started looking up. He had a
complete dazed look on his face, like – ‘What’s going on? What’s
happening?’
“I
think he had been beaten pretty bad before that. And then, just out of
the blue, the cop just punched him right in the face. It was quite
awful,” reports the cable news network.
Family
members said Donovan - who attends special education classes - has a
hearing problem and a speech impediment and is sometimes slow to react,
but that he would have been unlikely to provoke police, reports CNN.
Hopkins
said that Donovan has no arrest record and did not understand what was
happening to him.
“Donovan
has always been a subdued child,” said Talibah Shakir, his cousin.
“He is quiet and doesn’t bother anyone.”
KCAL
9 reported that another man, 32-year-old Neilson Williams, had filed a
complaint against Morse two weeks earlier, after the officer and six of
his colleagues allegedly beat him into a coma during an arrest.
